“Christmas crackers!” called Tom Smith, a wedding cake baker from Clerkenwell, London.
His wedding cakes sat delicately in his shop window on fine china, decorated with colorful icing. Waiting for his own true love, he just kept baking wedding cakes. Another day, another cake.
“This is going to be my wedding cake when I get married!” announced an elegant customer walking in the shop.
This year, 1847, he introduced his crackers along with his wedding cakes, which crackled like logs put on a fire in a twist of paper.
“When is the date?” Mr. Smith asked his new customer. “I need to make sure to get your order on my calendar, so it’s done in time.”
He noticed that the sun shone a little brighter through the shop bay window. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky.
“Oh, I’m not engaged yet,” she explained. “But I will be soon. Very soon. I just need the right man.”
“Oh, I see,” Mr. Smith sighed. “Well, here’s the brochure of all my cake designs. Find your favorite!”
“What are these?” inquired the lovely woman, also eating a sample of chocolate wedding cake from the counter.
“Those are Christmas crackers!” he answered. “My bonbons slumped in sales, so I put love messages in my sweets.”
“Love messages!” she gasped, grabbing a handful. “I need all the love messages that I can get!”
“I’m considering putting jewelry and toys in some of them instead of sweets for fun,” Mr. Smith commented. “I thought expanding the merchandise might increase business,” he continued, as she opened her first cracker with a pop.
“At first I called the crackers ‘cosaques’ after the noise from Cossack’s whips, but I decided on Christmas crackers,” he explained.
“It says, ‘You’ve just met your true love!’” the brunette woman whispered, looking up at Mr. Smith.
“That’s what it says, does it?” he stammered, scratching his head. “You can’t take those things too seriously!”
Before Mr. Smith could say anything else, his mystery customer threw her arms around him and kissed him.
“Marry me!” she exclaimed. “Marry me! Then, I’ll take every wedding cake in your shop for the rest of my life.”
At first, Mr. Smith tried to fight back, but after a moment, he figured there was no use in fighting with a gorgeous woman who loved his sweets.
“Christmas crackers!” Mr. Smith cheered, kissing her back. “Will you be my Mrs. Smith?”
“Of course, I will,” the wife-to-be agreed, taking a handful of cake and smashing it in his face and hair. “Taste the icing!” she laughed.
Then, he took a handful of cake and smashed it in her face and hair as well, and they both looked radiant. So, Mr. and Mrs. Smith lived happily ever after with wedding cakes and love all around them.
“Get your Christmas crackers!” Mr. Smith advertised. “They’re going fast!”
Their shop became known as a magical place where romantic messages read by customers proved true every time, even if there were a few bumps along the way.
“You can kiss me whenever you want,” Mrs. Smith told Mr. Smith in front of their customers. “No mistletoe needed!”
“I’d like a blizzard of kisses,” Mr. Smith replied, kissing her as the shop door opened, blowing in snow from the latest storm.
“My snowflake wishes have all come true, and so can yours,” Mrs. Smith announced.
Each year at Christmas, “Christmas crackers” sold in the millions all over the world because of the lasting love of the Smiths.
Copyright 2021 Jennifer Waters
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